Usability Test Based on Co-creation in Service Design

Abstract

Service design often solves complex system problems. The diversity of users’ requirements and uncertainty of “interaction” in the service delivery process lead to the uncertainty of service usability. The focus of usability in service on design and test can avoid or minimize the uncertainty of service experience to the maximum extent. The concept and mechanism of “Service Co-creation” in this paper plays an important role in this process, including co-design in service planning activities and value co-creation in the process of service delivery. At the same time, after considering the definition of service design, specificity of service and usability factors of interactive products comprehensively, service usability can be summarized as 8 elements in the paper, including adaptability, standardization, flexibility, learnability, memorability, fault tolerance, efficiency and satisfaction. And then take the “Hotel Family Services Design” project as an example, it carries out usability design and test involved people (stakeholders), events (processes) and objects (touchpoints) in the service system. On the one hand, “multi-role stakeholders” participating in the “co-design workshop” can identify the precise needs of users and develop useful and usable services with more pertinence in the service planning stage. On the other hand, different forms and approaches of “prototype test” (Discussion Prototype, Simulation Prototype) to verify the usability and experience of service systems and processes in the service development and delivery phase help service designers and providers ultimately achieve their goals to improve service usefulness, usability and attraction through service iteration.